Fortunate Son
by lithugraph
Summary: Matthew knew something was up when they crossed the river and kept going west. Alfred pressed the accelerator to the floor, his back pressed into the seat, the car an extension of him. Alfred never looked more part of a machine. He was himself and yet not. It was summer, 1970. They had both just turned eighteen – and already their lives were heading in very different directions.


**\- Fortunate Son -**

"Say it again."

"...Dad, I'm - I joined the army."

"One more time."

"Dad, I...hey, Mattie? Look at me, you know?"

"Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah, sorry. Go ahead."

"I joined the ar — c'mon man, like, _look at_ me! Stop fiddlin' with that thing."

"Sorry! I'm sorry, Al. I was just trying to get a good station." The transistor radio gave a hiss as Matthew's fingers turned the knob.

"Not gonna get anything good. Mountains block the stuff from San Francisco. I'm sick of that Bay Area junk anyway," Alfred said.

The dial came to rest on some top-40 station. Matthew set the radio down on the trunk of the car, where Alfred had been perched for a quiet hour, staring across the narrow banks of the Sacramento River. It was supposed to have been a fishing trip. That's what Al told their dad. That's how he got to borrow the car. Even packed up their rods and a tackle box just to make it look legitimate.

A beer bottle hung between Alfred's knees. It was his second. The sun hadn't even set yet and Al was on his second one.

Matthew frowned at his own bottle resting on the trunk, half empty and getting sweaty under the heat of the valley sun. Al had bought a six-pack. Drove over to Davis to do it. No one knew them there and it was a college town anyway. Rumor was the closer you were to campus, the less likely you'd get carded – and if that didn't work, you could always flag down some upperclassman to buy the beer for you. Matthew knew something was up when they crossed the river and kept going west. Alfred pressed the accelerator to the floor, his back pressed into the seat, the car an extension of him. Alfred never looked more part of a machine. He was himself and yet not. The widows were down; the radio blared Creedence Clearwater Revival and Alfred wore a strange grin on his face — one only _he_ knew the meaning to — and they drove west.

Matthew started to get an idea what Al was up to when he saw the exit signs for Davis. It was at least a twenty-five mile trip one-way from their home in Parkway Estates.

"Dad's gonna know we didn't go fishing," Matthew said, eyeing the odometer. Their father checked it zealously.

Alfred didn't answer immediately. The grin vanished from his face, his mouth settling into a thin line. It was one of the few times they truly looked identical, when Alfred wasn't smiling.

"I doubt he'll care about that," Al finally said.

They pulled into town, stopping at a gas station near the UC-Davis campus. Theirs was the only car in the lot. Alfred blew out a long breath then turned off the ignition. He hesitated a few seconds before getting out, as if hoping someone else would pull in.

"I guess college is pretty dead over the summer," Matthew remarked, folding his arms.

Alfred ignored him and began pumping gas, leaning against the car and whistling "Bad Moon Rising." Matthew began to wonder if all his brother wanted to do was take a drive. The pump shut off and Al went to go pay.

He returned with a six-pack in his hand. "Want to grab a burger?"

Matthew didn't say anything as Alfred stowed the beer behind his seat. They drove to a diner on the edge of town that looked like it hadn't been renovated since the '40s. It was long and narrow, like it had been built from an old train car. A stool-dotted counter curved around the kitchen grill on one side; tables and booths lined the other. The place smelled like their kitchen after their mom made pancakes, except more nauseating. Matthew slid into a booth, sticky from decades of built up maple syrup and hamburger grease. This whole trip was nothing more than a bad joke — and Matthew didn't yet know the punchline. But at least the table had its own Wurlitzer. Alfred ordered them both a coffee and a Coke as Matthew flipped through the song selections.

The waitress brought the drinks. Alfred blew across the top of his coffee and took a sip.

"Anything good?" he asked.

Matthew shrugged, reaching in his pocket for some change. "Not really. Mostly country stuff." He put some coins in the machine and punched a few numbers. The sounds of The Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" soon filled their table.

There were only three other people at the diner. Two old guys sitting two stools apart at the counter, one reading a newspaper while the other hung on his cigarette; the woman at the far booth kept looking out the window.

"So I joined the army," Alfred blurted.

Matthew blinked and looked over from the Wurlitzer to his brother. The second Call for the Captain ashore echoed in the ensuing silence.

"You…what?"

"I joined the army," Alfred said, as casually as he could muster. He slouched back in the booth, both hands wrapped around his coffee mug.

Matthew leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. His glasses slipped down his nose, eyebrows inching higher into his hairline as the punchline resounded from the juke: _This is the worst trip I've ever been on._

"C'mon, Mattie. Stop looking at me like that."

The waitress returned for their order, but Matthew just shook his head. He suddenly had no appetite despite it being close to dinnertime.

Apparently Alfred didn't either.

The waitress brought his meal. He only ate a few french fries, looking as if they might choke him with each bite. He didn't touch the hamburger.

Alfred paid the tab and they drove back to Sacramento in silence. Alfred pulled onto a back road that rode along the river, going past the suburban sprawl and out into farmland. They found a dirt track used by recreational fisherman during the day and teenagers at night and pulled off.

Alfred killed the ignition and sat in the car, hands still on the steering wheel, and looked out over the river.

"You _really_ want to go fishing?" Matthew asked, dubious.

Alfred glanced over at his brother, frowning. Without a word, he grabbed a beer and got out of the car. Matthew felt the back end dip as Alfred sat on the trunk. He stayed in the car a few selfish minutes, wishing he could just go home, wishing Alfred hadn't driven so far past the suburbs. It was too far to walk, but maybe he could thumb down a ride….

But what if Al drank himself into a stupor and crashed the car trying to get home. Or what if he didn't even come home….

Matthew turned every possible outcome over in his head until he didn't want to think about it anymore. He reached for his book bag in the backseat. He always brought along books to read, no matter where they went. He would tuck his legs under him in the backseat and read while his father and Alfred talked sports, their mother humming to the radio. It made the time go by faster. Made things easier to deal with.

But all the books he brought he'd read a dozen times over. He hadn't swapped them out for anything new since graduation. Matthew leaned back against the headrest and sighed. The only other thing he had was his transistor radio. He took it out and started turning the dials when Alfred appeared at his window. His hands were buried in the front pockets of his shorts, his broad shoulders rounded.

"Can I ask you somethin'?"

Matthew pushed his glasses up his nose. "What?"

"Can you…like, I don't know, p-pretend you're dad, or somethin'? Just so I can practice. Telling him?" Alfred scuffed at the dirt with his trainer.

The radio hissed in Matthew's hand. Snatches of a song cut in between static. Alfred got two beers out of the back, popped the tops off both, and handed one to Matthew. He then went back to the trunk and sat.

Matthew got out of the car, slipping the radio in his back pocket, and followed.

"Okay. Pretend I'm dad."

Alfred didn't say anything for a few minutes. He had that same look from the diner, only now it was words choking him.

"Dad…I joined the army."

Matthew had him say it again and again, hoping he could convince himself that it _was_ real, but each time it sounded even more unbelievable. He couldn't stand to hear it anymore.

They had just turned eighteen earlier that week. Long after many of their classmates. Long after the graduation parties had ended. Right smack in the middle of summer. It never seemed fair to Matthew, having a summer birthday. School was out and everyone went on vacation. No one remembered you in the summer, unless you ran into them shopping at the Safeway or something. So there was no one to celebrate with really, except a twin brother who you had nothing in common with except for a birthday and a middle name. But this wasn't a secret twin birthday party, or anything. It wasn't even a fishing trip, no matter how much Matthew began to wish it was. He picked up the radio again and started messing with the dials again.

"So, what do you think?" Alfred asked.

"Are...you asking me as _me_ or am I still supposed to be dad?"

A Three Dog Night song came on.

Alfred shrugged and swirled his beer. Matthew set the radio down and leaned against the car, hands sunk in the back pockets of his jeans.

Alfred finished his beer and chucked the bottle across the river. It made the opposite bank, smashing into a million glittery bits. Alfred's face darkened.

He always did have a golden arm, Alfred. He could throw a baseball from the outfield fence to the guy on third base, waiting to tag the runner. He made a fifty yard pass in football look effortless, like tossing away a piece of trash. Alfred got the arm, the looks, the good eyes. And Matthew got everything else. The leftovers. Myopia, asthma, and an IQ high enough to get him bumped up a grade or two, though his parents never allowed it. They didn't want to split up the twins.

Alfred slid off the trunk and went around to the rear passenger side. He reached in the opened window and grabbed another bottle.

"You gonna finish that?" Alfred gestured at the half empty beer still sitting on their dad's Oldsmobile.

"…Yeah. Eventually." Matthew picked up the bottle and drank. The beer was cheap — the kind college kids get when they want to get loaded without blowing a lot of cash. After your fourth or fifth one, who cares about taste? Your tongue's too numb. Just like the rest of you.

Matthew glanced at his brother. Al was wearing a smirk that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"One of us has to be sober enough to drive home," Matthew said.

Alfred's smirk widened. "You never answered my question."

Matthew's brow knit.

"From before," Al said. "What do you think?"

Matthew looked away, suddenly feeling like the world's shittiest older brother. He was only older by three minutes, but it was something he took pride in, especially when his brother had been gifted with so much. All _he_ got was his stupid brain. He could calculate logarithms in his head, could name the capital of any country without looking at a map, could speak fluent French — but he could not answer a simple question. Because it was not simple. It was an onion — layer after layer protected by a fragile, translucent skin. The layers were the things people didn't want to deal with. Peel off the skin and it started to stink.

Each one of Matthew's answers was a layer. Each one made his nose wrinkle and want to turn away. He could say any number of things — _If only mom and dad had let me skip ahead, I wouldn't have to deal with this now. If only you had told them, if only you had talked to me, I could have helped you, if only I wasn't so selfish, if only I had noticed,_ — but nothing fit.

Matthew looked at his brother, like looking at a different version of himself. It was the middle of a new year, the start of a new decade. People still wore flowers in their hair, espousing peace and love while the country reeled from four dead in Ohio. The winds of change did nothing but scatter the ashes of burnt out churches down south. Speeches from King and Kennedy were a lost memory, a ghost song. Was the moon landing even real? This was their inheritance. The generation that came before had not fixed a damn thing. Nothing had changed. And Vietnam felt closer to suburban Sacramento than Haight Ashbury ever did.

Matthew wrapped the question back in its onion skin and said in a small voice: "Things were supposed to have been different."

The smirk faded from Alfred's face. His shoulders drooped.

Matthew pushed himself off the car and went down to the river. He picked up a flat stone and tried skimming it across the water, but the moment it hit the surface, it sank with a hollow sound.

He tried another. And another.

"Here. Like this." Alfred appeared at his side, showing him how to hold a rock like a discus in his fingers.

Alfred shot the rock across the water. It skipped twice before sinking.

Matthew shook his head. "I could never do that stuff. That was always _you._ "

"Yeah, well…." Alfred picked up another rock. "Guess it didn't help me much, did it?" He turned the rock over in his hand and let it drop.

Alfred made the Varsity baseball team their sophomore year in high school. The next year, he added Varsity football. The closer he got to senior year, the more he began to have that _look_ after every game. Hopeful that a college scout had seen him play, eager to be recruited.

"You'll get it the next time," their dad always said. But the next times dwindled fast. It had been a month since baseball season ended, a month since they graduated, and Alfred's next times were all out. His dad had stopped pressing him for news around May, though Matthew thought the old man still held onto some kind of hope. The news that _he_ had received a full scholarship to Berkeley was met with a solid "We knew you could do it," and that was that. But Alfred didn't have the brains and their family didn't have the money, which left him with one option: sports. But now that card was off the table, it left him with nothing except the inevitable.

"What do you think dad's gonna say?" Alfred asked.

By the time he was their age, their father had already fought across France and Belgium in the Second World War. He dropped out of school when he was fourteen to support his family after his father died, then enlisted in the Army when he was sixteen, having lied about his age, and lost three fingers to frostbite in the Ardennes. And that was all the twins ever knew about their father's time in the service. He never would talk about anything else.

"I don't know," Matthew said. He wanted to say something like _I'm sure he'll still be proud of you_ , but the words tasted like a cheap lie, an insult to his brother, who had won their father's affections through his athletic prowess.

Alfred sank onto the rocky bank, resting his elbows on his knees.

Matthew sat beside him. "I'm sorry, Al."

"Hey, don't sweat it. A grenade's just like a baseball," his brother grinned. "Except it's made of metal. And explodes." Alfred laughed.

Matthew didn't see the humor in that.

Alfred's chest hitched. He gasped, sounding like a man barely above water. He drank down the rest of his beer, wincing with each pull, chucking the bottle when he was through. It splashed down in the middle of the Sacramento River. He gave a wet laugh, wiping his mouth and eyes with the back of his hand.

Matthew stood, going to get the last two beers and his radio from the car. The Band's "The Weight" was playing as he sat back down beside his brother. Matthew popped the top off both bottles and handed one to Alfred, watching as the sun sank low over Sacramento.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Sacramento, Davis, and Berkeley are all cities in California, with Davis and Berkeley being two well-known college towns. The Bay Area refers to San Francisco. Haight-Ashbury is a district in San Francisco that pretty much spawned the counter-culture (hippie) movement in 1960s America._


End file.
